Marquette University would not violate its "core identity" as a Catholic and Jesuit university by using the name "Warriors."
Marquette's own history as a Jesuit Order was started by the courage and strength of one warrior in particular.
Before I finished my MBA, I received a history degree at Marquette. My school follows the Jesuit tradition and the teachings of St. Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the order in 1534. He was canonized on March 12th, 1622; followers vow poverty, chastity and special obedience to the pope.
The following information about Ignatius was taken from "The Saints, A Concise Biographical Dictionary," printed in 1958, edited by John Coulson:
He received only a superficial education in youth. His interests at that time were in gaming, in affairs of gallantry and above all in feats of military prowess. In the war between France and Spain in May, 1521,the French crossed the Pyreness and laid siege to Pampeluna. Others of the defenders were for surrender, but Ignatius insisted that they hold out. In the storming of the fortress his thigh was fractured by a cannon-ball. He was taken to the Castle of Loyola, where it was discovered that the bone had been badly set. It had to be broken and re-set.
He bore the pain with fortitude, and it was during his long subsequent convalescence that, finding no other literature, he passed his time in reading the lives of the saints. Their example fired him to emulation. 'Supposing,' he said, 'I were to do what St. Francis and St. Dominic have done?'
He resolved to become a knight in the service of God.
In 1522, when he had recovered, he made his way to the Shrine of our Lady of Montserrat. There he made a three-day confession, gave his knightly apparel to a beggar and hung his sword upon an altar of our Lady … Later at Manresa, he received divine illumination by which the rest of his life was guided. He composed there the "Spiritual Exercises," in which he laid down the principles by which a Catholic ought to 'regulate his life, ' … sketched out his doctrine of 'election' and his demand that all shall always be done 'to the greater glory of God.' Despite spending time during the Inquisition in the cells, under his generalship he expanded the Society in all parts of the world, and by the time of his death in 1556 it numbered 12 provinces and nearly a 1,000 members.
St. Ignatius of Loyola was a warrior, who fought for his beliefs like many Christian warriors over time, and who was not unlike many a martyr who sacrificed and suffered. We should never be ashamed to honor the history and tradition of the warriors who fought for us, and whom we now follow. Has the Board of Trustees ever considered its own history lesson?
Stan Zurawski is a 1981 Marquette alumnus.
This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on April 19 2005.